”We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”

The assimilated comms array broadcasts the message on repeat, diligently following its last directive even as a tractor beam drags the debris toward an Alliance vessel. The mood there is tense, the crew well aware of the risks. Understanding Borg technology is key to understanding the Borg, the assimilated species themselves, and possibly even to freeing them.

As a society grows, it must confront the dangers of its own technology. The industrial revolution brought global warming, the atomic age brought M.A.D., and today the services that connect us have splintered us into isolated tribes of alternative facts. The inconvenient truth is that we must adapt or perish. The Borg are a terrifying embodiment of the price of failure. Like a black hole formed from collapsing culture, they are a technocratic singularity, a walking point of no return. They challenge us to temper our technology with humanity, and to cherish what makes us different even as we grow together.

Star Trek is at heart a vision of a positive future, where hard social work and brilliant technology have made life better—the opposite of the Borg, and contrasted with other sci fi. Science fiction is often set in a dystopia. These warnings are often prescient and valuable, but it is harder to be for a vision of the future than against one. To seek the truth – the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based – requires vulnerability to change. It requires courage and decency in equal measure. When the hard moment comes, what will you stand for? Do you deserve to wear that uniform?

Blind to all this, the Lobi Consortium has been contracted to provide you with examples of reverse-engineered Borg technology in specially sealed lock boxes. They make it a point to not discuss details when clients indicate their cargo is a maximum risk factor. Given our lack of logistical options, we have been forced to accept discretion.



Captains opening the Borg Lock Box may find themselves fortunate enough to win the Liberated Borg Command Juggernaut [T6]. Unlike their Collective counterparts, the Liberated Borg have been helpful and open in their communication with the Alliance. One positive result of this communication is the sharing of technologies and starships.

The Liberated Borg Command Juggernaut is a vessel with a unique design history. Designed by the recovering minds of newly liberated Borg, its disjointed appearance reflects its designers’ rebellion against conformity, while the solid internals reflect a return towards structure to keep one sane. The result of this internal conflict is a starship that is a terror in external conflicts, possessing many of the Borg’s most fearsome strengths in combat, such as the capability to launch Plasma Disintegrating Blasts.

The Liberated Borg Juggernaut comes equipped with the Disruptive Topological Matrix Universal Console. When activated, this console deals significant plasma damage to several nearby enemies, and inflicts Viral Disruption on them for a short duration, which causes Plasma Damage and attacks Subsystems of vulnerable starships while present.

Fully Mastering the Liberated Borg Juggernaut grants Captains access to the following Starship Trait:

Enhanced Nanite Regeneration

Regenerative Nanites are at the core of some of the Borg’s most powerful vessels, helping to keep them in optimal fighting condition, and this is no exception. When the necessary conditions are met, this trait will automatically activate, regenerating a significant portion of your starship’s hull.

(Additional information on the above starship will be contained in a separate Developer Blog.)



Two special Universal Consoles can be acquired in the Borg Lock Box: the Cutting Tractor Beam and the Retrofitted Assimilator.



The Retrofitted Assimilator enables your ship to fire a Quantum Torpedo laced with Borg nano-probes. The nano-probes attempt to assimilate the enemy vessel under your control. The Collective they integrate the target into is a miniature hacked unimatrix the size of a typical command desk, only capable of integrating one vessel at a time. Larger assimilated ships are more powerful.



The Cutting Tractor Beam console deploys a retrofitted Borg Generator attached to one of their Kinetic Cutting Beams. This Cutting Tractor Beam attempts to harvest technology from enemy ships, dealing significant Kinetic damage over time. If the foe’s ship is below half Hull, this will tend to reach vital systems, disabling either engines or shields for an extremely long duration. The console's Distinctiveness enhancement improves integration with other Universal Consoles -- each time a Universal Console is activated, the damage of all Universal Consoles is increased for a period of time.

A new Starship Trait is also available: Regeneration Cycle. Activating at least one each of a Science, Tactical, and Engineering Bridge Officer Ability within 5 seconds repairs a substantial amount of hull.



The Borg Lock Box also has new Space and Ground weapons inside the Assimilated Plasma Weapon Pack. The Borg’s preference for this energy type is poorly understood, but the performance of their weaponry leaves little doubt at the efficacy of this choice. These weapons are available as beams and versatile ground weaponry. They replace the traditional Plasma burn with an increase in Hull or Health Regeneration and an increase in Damage. Rarely, weapon packs contain the Borg Vanity Shield, providing the aesthetics of the Liberated Borg Command Juggernaut to a ship that equips it in its vanity shield slot.



Captains may also acquire Borg Kit Module packs. These Kit Modules are universal, and can be used by any class.

Assimilate
Deals physical damage over time to a targeted foe and foes near them, assimilating them under your control once they fall. Max 4 targets. These nanoprobes are only able to assimilate humanoid creatures, and some humanoids cannot be assimilated (Borg, Undine, Photonic Beings).
Orbital Cutting Tractor Beam
Uses shipboard Borg tech to fire a Cutting Tractor Beam that will chase down your primary targets, dealing massive damage in an area of effect. Fallen enemies struck by the beam will produce a combat buff available on pickup.
Collective Will
Gathers power from allies, then unleashes the current on a targeted foe, dealing Electrical damage and Disabling the target. The amount of damage and the duration of Disable are based on the number of nearby allies.
Resistance is Futile
Disperses nanoprobes to the ground under the target, where they rapidly repurpose material there into nanotubules. These burst out at foes in the target area, halting their movement and infecting their defensive measures. When they take damage from this Ability's user, the nanoprobes activate, massively reducing the foes' resistance to whatever sort of damage was dealt. As this technology is derived from Borg adaptive countermeasures, it does not function on Physical or Kinetic damage.
Adapt
Creates a tiny defensive screen around each nearby ally to gather data about incoming damage. When any ally is damaged, all affected allies immediately gain Immunity to whatever kind of damage was dealt. Only applies to the first instance of damage. Without connection to the Collective, this Immunity is only temporary even if foes cannot remodulate their weapons.


Borg Kit Frames reverse-engineered from Borg exoframes are also available. They automatically communicate with gear stored on the ship to deploy a Borg Combat Structure after the use of enough Ground Kit Modules.



A cadre of new Liberated Borg Duty Officers is also available to enlist on your starship. They have exceptional Active Duty abilities that improve various parts of your ship’s function. Each Duty Officer uses a different combination of Class and Specialty, which influences the nature of their Active Duty ability. There are three different Active Duty abilities:

Free Association
Using a relevant Class Bridge Officer Ability has a chance to recover the cooldown of relevant Specialization Bridge Officer Abilities.
Using a relevant Specialization Bridge Officer Ability has a better chance to recover the cooldown of relevant Bridge Officer Class Abilities.


Strength Through Unity
Using a relevant Class Bridge Officer Ability has a chance to grant a stat based on the associated Specialization.
Cmd: Teamwide temporary Hull
MW: All Power Levels set to max (they decay naturally after)
Pilot: Accuracy
Temp: DoT Damage
Int: Crit Sev
Using a relevant Specialization Bridge Officer Ability has a better chance to grant a stat based on the associated Class.
Eng: Armor Pen
Tac: Crit Chance
Sci: Exotic Damage


Cooperative Computing
Using a relevant Class Bridge Officer Ability has a chance to trigger a Bridge Officer Ability based on Class.
Using a relevant Specialization Bridge Officer Ability has a better chance to trigger the same Ability.
Eng: Aux2Structure
Tac: Attack Pattern Delta
Sci: Feedback Pulse


New Captain’s Traits are also available within the Borg Lock Box. They are universal and available to all species.



Ground: Adaptive Offense
Improves Critical Strike chance. On successfully Critically Striking, a third of this improvement converts to a greater amount of Critical Severity for a moderate duration. This can happen up to three times, and each time all such durations are reset.
Ground: Adaptive Defense
Improves Damage Resistance Rating while in combat. Improvement is divided by the number of enemies targeting you.
Space: Adaptive Offense
Improves Critical Strike chance. On successfully Critically Striking, a third of this improvement converts to a greater amount of Critical Severity for a moderate duration. This can happen up to three times, and each time all such durations are reset.
Space: Adaptive Defense
Improves Damage Resistance Rating while in combat. Improvement is divided by the number of enemies targeting you.




There are many other prizes within the Borg Lock Box for players to acquire, such as R&D Packs, Boosts, and other assorted items. Each box also contains a Borg Datacore, which allow the user to recover a scrap of information stored within the Borg collective, recording it in a Codex for future reference. The Datacore also contains a non-combat holographic representation of its drone of origin, which follows the player for a period of time.



The Lobi Store also has new items available for purchase:



Borg Exoskeletal Frame

Sturdy construction materials and Borg ablative nanostructures offer excellent protection from Energy damage and respectable protection against Physical and Kinetic damage. An Anti-Kinetic Shield derived from scans of Borg technology recovered by the U.S.S. Voyager protects the wearer from melee strikes and hurl the attacker away. The processing power of the gear can be used to rapidly recharge Universal Kits.



B.A.T.D. Extractor

An initialism for “Biological and Technological Distinctiveness Extractor”, this Borg device is equivalent to a Compression Bolt pistol. It has a secondary fire mode that hits a single target with a high damage bolt of energy that disables them briefly and knocks them back. The tertiary Palm Strike has been replaced with Assimilate Distinctiveness, which transports the user to target Foe and injects them with Borg nano-probes. Rather than forming a Borg Drone when they fall, the nano-probes simply collect their biological and technological data. This adds a stack of Distinctiveness to the user, adding to their Max Health and Energy Damage. Stacks cap at 20. At 10 stacks, Assimilate Distinctiveness also heals the user. At 20 stacks, it gains area of effect and deals its damage much faster.


Jon “20thCenturyFaux” Herlache
Systems Designer
Star Trek Online